Linda Kinnee

Linda Kinnee has quit as executive director of the Cultural Foundation, a Woodland Hills private group that is attempting to finance and build an expansive arts center in the Sepulveda Basin. Kinnee, whose resignation is effective Saturday, will become executive director of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation. Ross Hopkins, a private consultant, has been named interim director of the foundation.

Linda Kinnee has quit as executive director of the Cultural Foundation, a Woodland Hills private group that is attempting to finance and build an expansive arts center in the Sepulveda Basin. Kinnee, whose resignation is effective Saturday, will become executive director of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation. Ross Hopkins, a private consultant, has been named interim director of the foundation.

Thom Mayne is growing agitated. He's beginning to wave his hands. "It blows my mind," he says. Mayne and partner Michael Rotondi head the Morphosis architecture firm of Santa Monica. Their avant-garde style--as evidenced by the cancer-care center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and such Los Angeles restaurants as Kate Mantilini and Angeli Caffe--has earned them numerous awards and an international reputation for radical work. " 'Unique' is a better word," Mayne says. But he quickly adds, "It seems that a lot of our work produces controversy."

Thom Mayne is growing agitated. He's beginning to wave his hands. "It blows my mind," he says. Mayne and partner Michael Rotondi head the Morphosis architecture firm of Santa Monica. Their avant-garde style--as evidenced by the cancer-care center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and such Los Angeles restaurants as Kate Mantilini and Angeli Caffe--has earned them numerous awards and an international reputation for radical work. " 'Unique' is a better word," Mayne says. But he quickly adds, "It seems that a lot of our work produces controversy."

Louis Foster, one of the San Fernando Valley's wealthiest businessmen, has donated $100,000 to the Cultural Foundation, a private group that is trying to build an arts complex in the Sepulveda Basin. The donation comes in the form of a matching gift, meaning that the foundation must raise an additional $100,000 by March 9 to receive the money. Foundation officials say they are well on the way to meeting that requirement.

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit Friday to stop the development of an arts park in the Sepulveda Basin, charging that alternative sites were not thoroughly examined as required by federal law. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, says Arts Park L.A. would damage the basin as a public recreation area and a habitat for migrating Canada geese.

Three insurance companies will donate $150,000 to the Cultural Foundation to help pay for a competition to design the foundation's proposed Arts Park L.A. in Sepulveda Basin, the foundation announced Wednesday. The competition is an early step in the foundation's quest to build a $50-million complex of theaters, art workshops and a museum.

The Cultural Foundation said it was making a bold statement when it selected an avant-garde architectural model for the theater that would highlight an arts complex the group hopes to build in Sepulveda Basin. But after taking strong criticism for the recently unveiled model, the foundation has decided to speak a little more softly. Arts Park L.A.'s proposed theater is designed to jut above ground in what appears to be an industrial splay of grids, fins, elevated walkways and "thrusting circulation bars."

The executive director of the San Fernando Valley Cultural Foundation has gone on indefinite leave because of illness, a spokeswoman for the organization said. Executive Director Madeleine Landry is undergoing testing to identify an unexplained illness, said foundation Development Director Linda Kinnee. The foundation, a nonprofit corporation formed in 1981, is attempting to raise as much as $70 million to build two arts complexes, one in Sepulveda Basin, the other in Warner Center.

The Sierra Club has settled a 1 1/2-year-old lawsuit that sought to block construction of a controversial arts center in the Sepulveda Basin. Friday afternoon's out-of-court agreement with federal officials ensures that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers--which owns the flood-control basin and leases it to the city of Los Angeles for parkland and other uses--will consider locating the envisioned Arts Park L.A. outside the basin.

The art returned to ARTSPACE in Warner Center last week as city officials moved into the empty gallery and opened an exhibit by five local artists. The lights are on again in this large room at the base of the Warner Center Plaza 5 office building. Joni Mitchell is heard softly over stereo speakers. Partitions divide the space into equal sections for the showing of "Works on Paper." Mari Andrews' delicate wire sculptures hang beside dark and gaunt faces, the charcoal works of Linsley Lambert.

The Cultural Foundation has taken another step in its attempt to build an arts complex in the Sepulveda Basin by announcing a contest for architects to design theaters, workshops and a museum for the proposed center. As many as 1,000 entries are expected and by next spring the foundation hopes to have a detailed three-dimensional model of its Arts Park L.A.